Moving from principles to action for energy supply that mitigates
against climate change requires a long-term perspective. Energy
infrastructure takes time to build up; new energy technologies take
time to develop. Policy shifts often also need many years to take
effect. In most world regions the transformation from fossil to
renewable energies will require additional investment and higher
supply costs over about twenty years

scenario for a future energy supply

Moving from principles to action for energy supply that mitigates against climate change requires a long-term perspective. Energy infrastructure takes time to build up; new energy technologies take time to develop. Policy shifts often also need many years to take effect. In most world regions the transformation from fossil to renewable energies will require additional investment and higher supply costs over about twenty years. However, there will be tremendous economic benefits in the long term, due to much lower consumption of increasingly expensive, rare or imported fuels. Any analysis that seeks to tackle energy and environmental issues therefore needs to look ahead at least half a century.

Scenarios are necessary to describe possible development paths, to give decision-makers a broad overview and indicate how far they can shape the future energy system. Two scenarios are used here to show the wide range of possible pathways in each world region for a future energy supply system:

Reference scenario, reflecting a continuation of current trends and policies.

The Energy [R]evolution scenario, designed to achieve a set of environmental policy targets.

The Reference scenario is based on the Current Policies scenarios published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in World Energy Outlook 2011 (WEO 2011).47 It only takes existing international energy and environmental policies into account. Its assumptions include, for example, continuing progress in electricity and gas market reforms, the liberalisation of crossborder energy trade and recent policies designed to combat environmental pollution. The Reference scenario does not include additional policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the IEA’s projections only extend to 2035, they have been extended by extrapolating their key macroeconomic and energy indicators forward to 2050. This provides a baseline for comparison with the Energy [R]evolution scenario.

The global Energy [R]evolution scenario has a key target to reduce worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from energy use down to a level of below 4 Gigatonnes per year by 2050 in order to hold the increase in average global temperature under +2°C. A second objective is the global phasing out of nuclear energy. The Energy [R]evolution scenarios published by Greenpeace in 2007, 2008 and 2010 included ‘basic’ and ‘advanced’ scenarios, the less ambitious target was for 10 Gigatonnes CO2 emissions per year by 2050. However, the 2012 revision only focuses on the more ambitious “advanced” Energy [R]evolution scenario first published in 2010.

This global carbon dioxide emission reduction target translates into a carbon budget for New Zealand which forms one of the key assumption for the Energy [R]evolution scenario. To achieve the target, the scenario includes significant efforts to fully exploit the large potential for energy efficiency, using currently available best practice technology. At the same time, all cost-effective renewable energy sources are used for heat and electricity generation as well as the production of biofuels. The general framework parameters for population and GDP growth remain unchanged from the Reference scenario.

Efficiency in use of electricity and fuels in industry and “other sectors” has been completely re-evaluated compared to earlier versions of the Energy [R]evolution scenarios using a consistent approach based on technical efficiency potentials and energy intensities. One key difference for the new Energy [R]evolution for New Zealand is incorporating stronger efforts to develop better technologies to achieve CO2 reduction. There is lower oil demand factored into the transport sector (compared to the scenario published in 2007), from a change in driving patterns and a faster uptake of efficient combustion vehicles and a larger share of biofuels, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles especially after 2025.

The new Energy [R]evolution scenario also foresees a shift in the use of renewables from power to heat, thanks to the enormous and diverse potential for renewable power. Assumptions for the heating sector include a fast expansion of the use of district heat and more electricity for process heat in the industry sector. More geothermal heat pumps are also included, which leads to a higher overall electricity demand, when combined with a larger share of electric cars for transport. A faster expansion of solar and geothermal heating systems is also assumed.

Hydrogen generation can have high energy losses, however the limited potentials of biofuels and probably also battery electric mobility could make it necessary to have a third renewable option: Sustainable biofuels for the transport sector. The unique situation of New Zealand allows a limited amount of sustainable biofuels which will be grown, harvested and refined within New Zealand. The quantities of biomass power generators and large hydro power remain limited in the new Energy [R]evolution scenarios, for reasons of ecological sustainability.

In all sectors, the latest market development projections of the renewable energy industry48 have been taken into account. The fast introduction of electric vehicles, combined with the implementation of smart grids and a further expansion of the transmission grid allows a high share of fluctuating renewable power generation (photovoltaic and wind) to be employed. In this scenario, renewable energy would pass 50% of New Zealands energy supply just after 2020.

These scenarios by no means claim to predict the future; they simply describe and compare two potential development pathways out of the broad range of possible ‘futures’. The Energy [R]evolution scenarios are designed to indicate the efforts and actions required to achieve their ambitious objectives and to illustrate the options we have at hand to change our energy supply system into one that is truly sustainable.

4.1 scenario background

The scenarios in this report were jointly commissioned by Greenpeace, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) from the Systems Analysis group of the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, part of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The supply scenarios were calculated using the MESAP/PlaNet simulation model adopted in the previous Energy [R]evolution studies.49 The new energy demand projections were developed from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, based on an analysis of the future potential for energy efficiency measures in 2012. The sustainable biomass potential assumed for New Zealand has been judged according to Greenpeace sustainability criteria. The future development pathway for car technologies is based on a special report produced in 2012 by the Institute of Vehicle Concepts, DLR for Greenpeace International. Finally the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) analysed the employment effects of the Energy [R]evolution and Reference scenarios.